Numlock News: October 21, 2021 • Vikings, Walruses, Giphy
By Walt HickeyGiphyFacebook has been slammed with a £50 million ($70 million USD) fine from the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority after it failed to provide the regulator with information about its acquisition of gifmonger Giphy for $400 million last year. The watchdog thinks that it could raise competition concerns on digital advertising, and Facebook has refused to report all the required information in what the agency describes as a first. The agency also dinged Facebook for another £500,000 after it changed its chief compliance officer twice without consent from the regulator. While a huge, unprecedented breach in the eyes of the Authority, I estimate it’s currently ranked the 87th most significant problem Facebook has right now. EconomistsAn analysis of the number of papers published in the Journal of Economic Development found that some countries are studied well more than others by the profession. India had 21 papers per billion people, China had 34, Vietnam had 51 and Brazil had 24. Meanwhile, Uganda had 131 papers per billion people, and Chile had a high of 262 per billion. The reason for these research biases are interesting. First, because economists like analyzing fast-growing economies, Chile — which has grown 270 percent in the past 20 years — is an ideal test site, especially because location and time-zone wise it’s not too far from the United States compared to other countries industrializing at a similar pace. Uganda is also interesting given that its official language is English, and it’s the only sub-Saharan African country with more than five papers per billion published in the past two years. Vehicle ProblemsIn order to produce a tonne of magnesium you need 35 to 40 megawatt hours of power. Contrast that with the 16 MHW needed to make an equivalent amount of aluminum. Magnesium also has a short shelf life, because it starts oxidizing after three months. About 85 percent of the world’s magnesium production is in China, and here’s the issue, as the country ordered 35 of its 50 magnesium smelters to close through the end of the year and told the other 15 to halve production in order to hit energy targets. This is going to cause some significant problems in the automobile business, because 35 percent of the demand for magnesium is in auto sheet. As a result, prices for magnesium are up a whole lot, and the expectation is Europe will run out of magnesium in a few weeks. Neil Hume, The Financial Times LoggingA new study puts blame on logging for losses in the populations of salmon that spend a lot of time in rivers. From 1976 to 2015, the population of steelhead salmon, which spend most of their time in rivers, fell 80 percent, and the coho salmon fell moderately, while the pink salmon who spend most of their time in the ocean stayed steady. Looking at the various things that affect salmon lives, if all the other factors that impact the likelihood of survival stayed steady — temperature, predation, etc. — logging explains 97 percent of the decrease in baby steelhead born per mother fish, plus 98 percent for coho and 99 percent for cutthroat. RetrofitsRight now 35 percent of energy use in the world goes to constructing and operating buildings, as well as 38 percent of carbon emissions. As it stands, 90 percent of buildings that exist today are going to be standing in 2050. These two facts mean that there should be a considerable push toward adding insulation, repairing leaks, fixing HVAC systems to be more efficient and doing the kind of boring, routine improvements that nevertheless could cut energy use in half. However, that’s not happening: the average annual rate that buildings are getting renovated to cut energy loss is 1 percent. The rate of deep retrofits, which cut energy use by 60 percent, is 0.2 percent in Europe. WalrusWalruses call for aid. Will you answer? The World Wildlife Foundation has soft estimates of the worldwide population of walruses, figuring there are about 25,000 walruses in the Atlantic and 200,000 in the Pacific. However, that’s a ballpark estimate, because walruses are hard to count. They live to 40, they can weigh over 3,300 pounds, they are extremely easily spooked, they hate disturbances and they can stampede if they clock a weird noise. All of this makes it remarkably difficult to surveil them without using satellites. The World Wide Fund for Nature and the British Antarctic Survey are hoping to recruit 500,000 walrus detectives to sort through thousands of images they’re collecting through satellites over the next four years to accurately assess the populations of walruses. Adela Suliman, The Washington Post Runed VikationA new study analyzing scraps of discarded wood — as well as a solar storm — allowed researchers to date a Viking encampment in what is now Newfoundland to 1021 CE. The Norsemen hung out there for three to ten years, using the campsite as a base of operations for exploration. Radiocarbon dating of charcoal had put the time of Viking landing in the Americas at 975 to 1020 CE. A carbon-14 spike in 993 CE can be observed in the growth rings of trees as a result of a solar storm, and wood fragments from the site allowed the researchers to see the trees were felled from 1019 to 1024 CE, and another round of calibration gave them the year 1021 CE. Thanks to the paid subscribers to Numlock News who make this possible. Subscribers guarantee this stays ad-free, and get a special Sunday edition. Consider becoming a full subscriber today. The best way to reach new readers is word of mouth. If you click THIS LINK in your inbox, it’ll create an easy-to-send pre-written email you can just fire off to some friends. Send links to me on Twitter at @WaltHickey or email me with numbers, tips, or feedback at walt@numlock.news. Send corrections or typos to the copy desk at copy@numlock.news. Check out the Numlock Book Club and Numlock award season supplement. 2021 Sunday subscriber editions: Giant clams · Instagram · Remote Work · Latinos · Vapes · Smoke · Jeopardy! · Mangoes · BBLs · Summer Box Office · Time Use · Shampoo Bars · Wikipedia · Thriving · Comic Rebound · Return of Travel · Sticky Stuff · For-profit Med School · A Good Day · Press Reset · Perverse Incentives · Demon Slayer · Carbon Credits · Money in Politics · Local News ·Oscar Upsets · Sneakers · Post-pandemic Cities · Facebook AI · Fireflies · Vehicle Safety · Climate Codes · Figure Skating · True Believer · Apprentices · Sports Polls · Pipeline · Wattpad · The Nib · Driven2020 Sunday Edition Archive2019 Sunday Edition Archive2018 Sunday Edition ArchiveYou’re on the free list for Numlock News. For the full experience, become a paying subscriber. |
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Numlock News: October 20, 2021 • Roborealtors, Turkmenistan, College Towns
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
By Walt Hickey Lucy In The Sky With Problems Saturday saw the successful launch of Lucy, a NASA spacecraft that's headed for the Trojan asteroids near Jupiter. It's got two 7-meter-wide
Numlock News: October 19, 2021 • Holiday Shopping, Obscenities, Kids Television
Tuesday, October 19, 2021
By Walt Hickey Holidays The latest tracking poll from mid-October has about 18 percent of Americans half or more done on holiday shopping, with another 21 percent having accomplished more than zero but
Numlock News: October 18, 2021 • Squid Game, Jackup Boats, Invasive Hippopotamuses
Monday, October 18, 2021
By Walt Hickey Welcome back! Spooked Halloween Kills beat expectations, earning $50.4 million domestically in its initial release, the best showing for a horror movie of 2021 and the best performance
Numlock News: October 15, 2021 • Banksy, Halloween, Nurses
Friday, October 15, 2021
By Walt Hickey Have a great weekend! Theft Britain's seen a wave of financial crime, with £754 million stolen in the first half of the year according to the banking body, which is up 30 percent
Numlock News: October 14, 2021 • Tomato Sauce, Peppa Pig, William Shatner
Thursday, October 14, 2021
By Walt Hickey They Want Their Quarter Back In what is somehow only the second-most heinous thing a prominent NFL figure has done in the past week, former Jets and Vikings legend Brett Favre was
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